


Solace

by notkai



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Era, Cuddling, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, Panic Attacks, hardly canon era tbh, there's a brief puking scene if that bothers you but it isn't graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 03:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12123102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notkai/pseuds/notkai
Summary: “Pa?”Alexander glanced up from the article he was revising, setting his quill down and wondering what Philip was possibly doing up at close to midnight. After a moment, he located his glasses and slipped them on, watching the image of his son, leaning against the door frame of his office, come into startling clarity.“I don’t feel well.”





	Solace

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this under the influence of legally prescribed xanax, come project onto the founding fathers with me also i love philip have i mentioned that i love pip more than anything goodnight pls enjoy

“Pa?”

Alexander glanced up from the article he was revising, setting his quill down and wondering what Philip was possibly doing up at close to midnight. Normally, the younger was asleep by now, hair spread around him like a messy halo. It had taken a while for Alexander to get out of the habit of smoothing it away from his forehead after Philip was asleep, so that he didn’t wake up with a face full of tangles. 

He squinted in the dim lighting, having been working by the light of a nearly burned-out oil lamp for the better part of two hours. After a moment, he located his glasses and slipped them on, watching the image of his son, leaning against the doorframe of his office, come into startling clarity. Immediately, Alexander rose; he’d never seen Philip look so sickly.

“I don’t feel well.”

Philip's complexion had turned chalky, freckles standing out against the pallor of his skin, and a sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. He was dressed in only a nightshirt and had one arm wrapped loosely around his stomach, shoulders rising and falling rapidly. His brows were drawn together- whether with pain or fear, or both, Alexander couldn’t tell. 

Alexander crossed the room in a couple quick strides and placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, hoping to ground him a bit. Up close, he could hear the inconsistencies in Philip’s breathing- short, jagged inhales, followed by almost wheeze-like exhales. His body was wracked with fine tremors, and Alexander feared for a moment that he might faint right then and there. 

“Philip, what’s going on?” He asked, urgency seeping into his voice. Alexander laid a hand across Philip’s forehead, searching for a fever, but found nothing. “Are you ill?” 

“Don’t know,” Philip murmured in response. His eyes were glassy and unfocused. Alexander rested a hand on Philip’s chest and felt his heart pounding, far too quickly to be normal. “Just...happened. Won’t stop.”

For a brief moment, Alexander considered calling for a physician. He was at an absolute loss; ideas were darting around his brain faster than he could comprehend, and none of them provided a logical explanation. But then Philip suddenly gripped the sleeve of Alexander’s jacket, whimpering softly and tightening the arm around his stomach, and Alexander decided to temporarily throw logic away.

“Come on, you need to lie down.” Alexander wrapped an arm around Philip’s waist and led his son into the parlor, helping him lie down on the finely upholstered couch. He brushed a few stray hairs away from Philip’s temples and gently took hold of his trembling hand. Philip hardly seemed to register the change in scenery, his eyes locked on some point in the distance as he gasped. 

“Is your mother still awake?” Alexander asked desperately; Eliza was far, far better at caring for children, caring for  _ anyone _ , what with her gentle hands and soothing voice. Surely she could have made their Philip feel better by now. 

The small shreds of hope that Alexander held for his dear wife to still be awake were crushed by Philip’s head shake. “She returned to bed an hour ago,” He lamented, voice shaking worse than his hands. 

Alexander bit his lip, trying to think of what could possibly be going on. Maybe he should have called for the doctor- he could hardly manage taking care of himself, much less his ailing son, especially when he didn’t have the faintest clue as to what was afflicting him. Just as he was about to stand to wake his wife, to have Eliza watch over Philip while he tracked down their local doctor, Philip sat up at an alarming speed, pupils dilated and face suddenly white as fresh linens.

“Papi, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Alexander’s heart clenched; it had been years since Philip had called him ‘papi’; he must have been feeling truly awful to use such a childish term of endearment. 

He rose quickly and fetched the wastebasket from his office, darting back to Philip’s side and holding it under his chin just as he began to retch. He held the basket steady with one hand and managed to hold Philip’s hair away from his face with the other.

The younger doubled forward with harsh gags that seized control of all the muscles below his jaw before finally being sick into the basket, coughing and gagging in between fits of expelling watery bile. Alexander winced as the foul scent reached him, but held the basket steady nonetheless. 

Once he was finished expelling the contents of his stomach, Philip gave into equally harsh sobs, tears streaming down his alabaster cheeks. Alexander felt tears building at the back of his own eyes; he had never seen Philip look so utterly miserable before. He dug a plain white handkerchief out of his pocket and gently wiped the tears off of his son’s face, along with the smear of bile near the corner of his mouth. 

“I can’t breathe,” Philip moaned, near hyperventilating as his chest rose and fell with increasing speed. “Papi, I can’t breathe.”

And that’s when it clicked in Alexander’s mind; the shaking, the nausea, the sudden desperation in Philip’s voice. Although it had been nearly a year since his last episode, Alexander used to be struck by similar fits of sudden panic and fear. And if his memory served him right, he still had a small glass vial of medicinal capsules that had granted him relief from the terrible symptoms of the fits. It was tucked away in a drawer of his desk, forgotten about for the most part. 

“Pip, darling, I’ll be back in a moment.” Before his son could protest, Alex rose and went into his office, searching haphazardly through the paper-filled drawers before finally locating the small blue capsules. He fetched the glass of water from his desk along with the capsules and returned to the parlor, where Philip had all but curled into a ball, head resting on his knees and hands gripping the sleeves of his nightshirt tightly enough to wrinkle the fabric. Alexander knelt next to Philip and worked the cork out of the top of the vial. The sound alerted his son, who looked up with wide, red-rimmed eyes. 

“I know how scared you must feel,” Alexander began, trying to channel the consoling tone of Eliza’s melodic voice. He gently rubbed circles on Philip’s back, feeling the younger’s heartbeat dance through the thin material of his nightshirt. “This will help you, it will help you breathe. I promise.”

Philip took in the sight of the small capsule with apprehension, watching carefully as Alexander shook a singular pill into the palm of his hand and held it out to his son.

“Do you promise?”  
His tongue grew thick with emotion as he listened to the absolute desperation in his son’s voice. Alexander nodded resolutely.

“I promise.”

Philip breathed in deeply through his nose and reached out to take the pill, but his hands were shaking so badly that he was nearly unable to grasp the tiny capsule between his fingers. After a second attempt, Alexander set the glass of water down for a brief moment and instructed, “Open your mouth.”

Philip complied without any hesitation, opening his mouth and allowing his father to place the dose of medicine on his tongue. Alexander lifted the glass to his son’s lips and helped him take a few controlled sips of it before returning the glass to its new home on the mahogany table at the end of the couch.

For once, Alexander abandoned any semblance of a plan and worked by instinct; he shed his jacket, waistcoat, and boots, lying next to Philip and allowing his son to crawl into his arms as if he were a child again. His clothing remained in a heap on the ground, next to the sick-filled wastebasket, but both of those issues could be left for morning. Alexander’s present concern was making his son as comfortable as the current circumstances would allow.

His hand moved in soothing vertical strokes between Philip’s shoulder blades, and slowly felt his son’s breathing relax. The shaking lessened and lessened until he was still in Alexander’s arms. Finally, the medicine took full effect and left Philip sleeping soundly with his head resting against his father’s shoulder. 

Alexander let out a breathe that he hadn’t realised he was holding in and hugged his son a tad tighter; he’d been so focused on helping Philip that he hadn’t realized how terrified he had been, himself. The last time he’d seen Philip so distraught, so sickly seeming, was when he had come down with influenza as a child and nearly passed from fever. Alexander remembered the event vividly, and sometimes it appeared in his dreams, watching Philip tremble and murmur incoherently in a weak pidgin of Spanish and English, pleading for help-

Alexander banished the thought from his mind and focused instead on the deep, soothing cadence of his son’s breathing. He closed his own eyes and tipped his head back against the upholstery of the couch. Surely Eliza would question them both in the morning, wondering why they were sleeping in the parlor, Philip wrapped up in Alexander’s arms like a child. But that could wait until morning.

All that mattered then was that his son was safe. For Alexander, that was more than enough. It was all he would ever need. 


End file.
